Not Your Fairy Godmother

19 - The Common Fairy Who Mends Pots, Kettles and Witches

That night Matilda slept like a baby, she had to. The dispute spell had worn her completely and so had the night's events. She woke up at noon, eyes still refusing to open. To her surprise, they were puffy and sticky. Dry tears had turned to dust on her cheeks.

When did this happen? Matilda thought to herself as she touched her face. There was a minute of bliss where it was just another morning and another day to laze around at home.

Then the flashes of Thanksgiving dinner came to her like a thunderclap. Suddenly, the bright sunny world seemed to turn on its head and Matilda was thrust into an alternate reality where everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong and she was left friendless and hopeless.

She rubbed her face desperately, "Oh God. What did I do?"

Her first instinct was to blame Gwendolyn. She was the cause of all this.

And I confronted her! Matilda scolded herself, What the hell was I thinking? She groaned out loud, burying her head in her pillow. I bet she's going to put a curse on me. Matilda put a hand to her chest to see if her protection spells were still active. They were. She released a breath of relief.

She was too afraid to think back to the things she said; to Ursula, to Mal, to Alton... to Sebastian. Especially Sebastian. Slowly, carefully, timidly, the thought back to everything. Locking Alton up in the closet—which in hindsight was a ridiculous idea—saying all of those things to him about his brother, embarrassing Sebastian, pushing Ursula away when she had been the only one to not yell at her, fighting with Mal...

Again, she sought to blame Gwendolyn. She was the one who had brought magic into an already difficult situation by enchanting Bas. She was the one who had caused Matilda to bring Alton to the closet. She was the one trying to get Sebastian and Kat to break up. She had even gotten Kat's parents to attend, which was the part that confused Matilda but she put that thought away to investigate later. Right now she had to fix what she had broken.

It was easy to say someone else had pushed her to be mean to her friends. But deep down, Matilda knew that wasn't true. No one had made her do any of it. She had done those things and said those things of her own volition.

But there was hope. She could fix it.

With a heavy heart, she called Ursula first. She didn't have an apology prepared. She figured she's wing it. The phone rang and rang and rang. Ursula didn't pick up.

She doesn't want to talk to me.

No, I have to try again. Matilda checked the time just to be sure she wasn't calling to early. She wasn't.

The phone kept ringing and ringing. She didn't press redial for a third try.

A little discouraged, she tried Mal. After just two rings the automated female voice told her that the person on the other line was unavailable. Mal had cut off her call. Matilda threw her phone away. She did not have the courage to call Sebastian and have him ignore her call too.

"It'll be fine. They just need some time to cool off." She said out loud because just thinking it wasn't going to make anything better.

Matilda spent the rest of her long weekend not eating or sleeping but obsessing over what she was going to say to her friends when she saw them. She found herself lost and confused. None of the gang had called her back and scenarios about how mad they were with her kept increasing in paranoia every time she thought about it.

Finally, Monday came and with it a new, anxious expectation of meeting Sebastian. Matilda walked heavy steps into her office building, expecting to run into Sebastian in the lobby, in the elevator, at the entrance to their office. Her expectations were not met.